Black Boxes and Kicking a Possum

Dunking with a tennis ball they found

Buenos,

Well, we had a mas o menos week. It was ok, but the overall feeling was just kind of bleh. We started off the week with a Zone Conference on Tuesday with the Murfreesboro and McMinnville zones. We had trainings from the AP's, as well as President and Sister Andersen. After the trainings, we did a mini Christmas party. We had a white elephant gift exchange, and all the Elders did a tie exchange as well. 


The big thing from zone conferences was the black boxes. All of our cars got black boxes installed. Basically, it tells you if you are speeding or if you went over a bump to fast. It talks to you while you're driving, and if you need to fix something with your driving, it'll tell you. It's just designed to help us be safe and stuff. The first time it told me to "Check your speed" it scared the heck out of me though. It's kind of funny though, because the voice they used for the black box is the same as the robot in "2001 A Space Oddessy" haha. I'm just waiting for the day when it takes over the car and says, "I'm sorry Elder....I'm afraid I can't do that..." Haha.

The black box

Other news from this week: I got to kick a possum. It's a tradition in our mission that everyone has to kick a possum sometime in the two years that they're here. We were walking to this appointment, and we saw a dead possum on the side of the road, so I got to kick mine this week.

As far as our investigators: nearly all of our appointments fell through so...fun stuff. We couldn't meet with Héctor this week, although he did come to church (whoo!). We had a great Gospel Principles lesson with him all about the Priesthood. We also were able to meet with the Romeros (Julio and Denis this time). We had a pretty good lesson with them, teaching the Plan of Salvation. We also had a lesson in Murfreesboro. That was shocking. Murfreesboro is pretty much a black hole as far as missionary work goes, but we were able to contact this guy, Tomás. His wife is a less active, and he's heard a lot from the missionaries before, so we just kind of wanted to figure out where he was at. We showed him the Christmas video, and talked with him about the Book of Mormon. Who knows, maybe he'll work out.

Probably the other crazy thing that happened this week was with Oscar. We went to meet with him, but then he told us how his friend at work had fallen off a roof or something, and so Oscar had to take him to the hospital and sign a bunch of papers saying that his friend wasn't drunk and stuff. Satan is working hard on this guy, my goodness. I was also kind of bummed that Oscar wasn't able to make it to church this week. We really need to get him coming to church to get him ready for his baptism. Hoping everything works out.

My ponderizing scripture this week is Philippians 2:5 which simply states: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." As we think about the gifts that Christ has given us, especially the Atonement. Another great gift he gave us was his example. As we follow him, we should strive so that His thoughts and actions become our thoughts and actions. Let us be true representatives of Christ at all times, in all things, in all places.

Anyways, the work is moving slowly here, but hopefully we'll start to see some progress. We’re hoping for a better week as Christmas approaches.

Have a good one y’all!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

His companion, Elder S